It's was in the eighties here over the weekend and we were able to have two really fun rides over the weekend. We just stayed in the neighborhood, but we got to work on some loping and steering. Jessie is getting better at bending and her loping is becoming much more controlled.
Sunday we practiced loping side-by-side which has always ended up turning into a race, but the horses stayed relatively calm during the lope and almost even. The night before we had watched Tom Dorrance on Larry Mahan's show on RFD. Larry was riding and Tom instructed Larry to give the release by dropping the reins and folding his arms over his chest. Well, I had to try this. Only I dropped my mecates and folded my arms and then I asked Jessie to trot. I kept my hands off the reins as we trotted down the canal bank. She got a little close to the edge and I was tempted to pick up and then decided to trust her. I sat and with my arms folded she broke to a walk (which is what I wanted), then a few steps later I sat deeper and said "Whoa" and she stopped and backup up a step.
We did it again and I asked for a lope. It was even scarier asking for a lope without holding on to anything and I could feel her ask, "Are you sure?" I gave her a cue and off we went. She was nice and calm. Again she got close to the edge (it's about a 5 foot drop off). We loped about 20 yards and I sat to bring her to a walk and then we did it on the other lead. We tried it a little later out in the middle of an open field and I tried to steer with my legs but she pointed herself for home and my leg cues fell on deaf ears. I picked up the reins to turn her and dropped them again and she stayed in that direction which I thought was pretty cool.
It was a very nice ride. We were out there in short sleeves and it was almost warm. It is November, right?
1 comment:
Post a Comment